Hero
by Scrunchy
Summary: A nightmare plagues Stephanie after suffering under Serpine's red hand. Skulduggery, though not entirely wanted, comforts Stephanie in her weakness.  A fic for my best friend's Birthday. Because she loves this series and I love her. Ergo, I write fluff.


**This is a fic for my best friend/little sister/biggest fan Steph-nee. She's been there for me through pretty much every day of the last 6 years, and putting up with me for that long is just freakin' boss.**

**So, here's a little one-shot in honor of her coming of age (the big 18).**

**Disclaimer: Derek Landy is an amazing writer whom I only hope someday recognizes that he should not use his sense of humor to make people laugh themselves to death. He wrote this series and no one could possibly do so better.**

**Anyway, Happy Birthday and all that, Steph-nee. Here is the visual expression of my love that I wrote at 4am this morning.**

* * *

She could not breathe.

She could not breathe and she did not know why.

She could not breathe and someone was calling her name.

As Stephanie's consciousness came back to the waking world, she felt that her face was wet, and the cold, sticky feeling of night-sweat suddenly exposed to the night air that was rushing through her window. She shivered and gasped as she opened her eyes, a sob breaking through her lips as she stared up at the eyeless sockets of the skeleton holding her blanket.

His jaw was moving and, though he had no tongue or vocal chords or lungs or, really, any means with which to talk, he was saying her name. Though his face was incapable of showing concern, she heard it in his voice, as well as a slight tone of curiosity, though that certain element was rarely lacking in the skeletal detective at any point in time since she had met him.

"Are you alright?" He asked, and she could hear the pity in his voice and knew that he knew what she had been dreaming about. The sight of the red hand flashed before her face and sent her mind reeling as she wretched over the side of her bed. She hadn't eaten dinner after he had brought her home last night, so there was nothing to come up. She was shaking and felt his gloved phalanges touch her shoulder. She tried to shrug them off.

If she wasn't strong, he wouldn't let her stay as his apprentice. She had to be strong, she couldn't seem weak. She couldn't be having these bloody dreams of unimaginable pain and anguish. The reality was so much better than her nightmares. In the reality, when that hand had pointed at her, she had felt pain and then the sweet numbness of death blooming from her epicenter. In her dreams, there were only two things that she was aware of: that damned red hand and the spiking agony rushing through her body. She knew it was all in her head, knew that it wasn't real. However, when the pain came, she was immobilized and the fear fed the pain. She didn't wake her parents because when she screamed, it was silent. An agony so complete that it drove her vocal chords to the very edges of their spectrum and the screams of pain and fear were drowned out by the silent wails of a twelve year old, alone and feeling a pain so complete that she would welcome death instead.

"Of course…" she finally got out, too embarrassed to turn and look at him. She felt so silly, so stupid. It was just a dream, but it was a dream of a memory, and those were always the most vivid. The bed creaked slightly and she felt it shift as he sat down and the hand on her shoulder pulled her over until she was resting against him.

Stephanie had been hugged many times before- had been held by Skulduggery himself when he blasted them to the top of a wall in order to get over it, or when they snuck from her window and he manipulated the air into a cushion to gracefully set them on the ground- but being held in an attempt to comfort her was a completely new experience.

He wasn't warm, like he should have been, but his embrace still felt comforting and she hesitantly wrapped her arms around him. He was clothes and bones, but his suit cushioned his hard body from hers and she allowed her cheek to rest on his chest. She felt something in her hair and her eyes moved to see that his other hand was drifting through her hair. It came to rest on her back and she closed her eyes and just let him hold her.

"It's my fault…" he finally told her, just as she was about to nod off again. There was a soft hum from within him, and his chest cavity didn't vibrate with his words like a human's would. His chest didn't rise and fall with breaths, either. She assumed that the hum was caused by the magic that… manipulated him, she supposed. Whatever magic that was, it allowed him to speak without breath and live without sustenance or sleep.

"No." She finally said, once he had shifted to see if she was asleep. "I knew what I was getting into from day one." She told him, her hands clutching his suit jacket.

Skulduggery hummed thoughtfully and the mechanics of his vocalizations once again bothered Stephanie, but she said nothing as he mulled over her negation of his guilt. "Alright." He said, finally. She was surprised that he didn't argue with her, but let it pass. It was probably because it was true. He had warned her about everything that would happen, the hand, the pain, possible death…

She shivered and found herself snuggling closer to him as he pulled her blankets back up around her shoulders.

"Do the nightmares ever end?" She asked softly, looking up through his mandible and into the darkness that should have housed his tongue, the roof of his mouth and, beyond it, his brain.

"Why do you think I meditate instead of sleep?" He returned, his tone somewhere between regret and melancholy. "Sleep, Stephanie, you're safe now, and we have a big day tomorrow. Bad people to catch and all that."

" 'And all that.' " She muttered with a soft laugh and a yawn before resting against Skulduggery again.

He leaned back against her headboard and looked out at the stars past her window.

When Stephanie awoke the next morning, it was to the sounds of her parents downstairs. She sat up and looked around, curiously. Had Skulduggery really been there, or had it been her imagination- a dream within a dream.

The lavender of the ribbon on his hat caught her eye and she smiled a little, remembering that it was the color of his suit the day- and night- before. It perched on her bed post a little sadly, like it had lost its way, and she took it down before summoning her reflection and changing into her black clothes. It was a few minutes yet before Skulduggery would come get her for their day of magical wonder, so she settled into playing with his hat in her mirror as her reflection watched, seemingly numb as she modeled the hat in front of the mirror. A skeletal hand suddenly plucked it from her head and she turned, face to chest with Skulduggery Pleasant.

"Well, I did not expect to see my hat being so ignobly treated." He said, and she could hear the cocked eyebrow and mockingly disapproving frown in his voice, though they were absent from his face.

"Thank you!" She blurted immediately and blushed, clearing her throat before moving on. "For last night…" she mentioned, watching him place his hat on his head and straighten it until it was nice and in place.

"Hm… well, I couldn't have my favorite apprentice running off on be just because of a few lousy dreams, now, can I?" He asked, cocking his head towards her, and she was sure that he was looking at her, though he had no eyes.

"I suppose that _would_ be a set back." She agreed, following him to the window and stepping up with him. He wrapped his arms around her and Stephanie held on tight. Then they were lifted off and gently allowed to the ground. Off on another adventure. At least Stephanie knew that it couldn't get any worse than her nightmare, and Skulduggery had saved her from that. He saved her from everything. She smiled a little at the thought.

He was her hero, and she had once said jokingly that she wanted to be just like him when she grew up, but it was true. Skulduggery was her hero and she wanted to be a kick-ass sorcerer-detective just like him.


End file.
